Vision for a City

Vision for a City

Agape International Missions (AIM) welcomes Laura Linner as the new Director of Rahab’s House Community Center in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Agape International Missions has fought sex trafficking with projects in Cambodia since 2006. Our first Community Center project, Rahab’s House Svay Pak (RHSP), began in 2007 by building relationships and meeting needs within the community of Svay Pak which had been ravaged by child sex trafficking in brothels. The result was an unprecedented transformation of the community.

Successful expansion into the city of Siem Reap with a new Rahab’s House community center began in late 2011 by AIM volunteer American staff, Steve and Lygia Gherebean. Instead of children held in brothels, sex trafficking in Siem Reap is perpetuated in the Karaoke Bars where young women are chosen and then taken off the premises. In many ways, this method is more psychologically traumatic because the bondage is more difficult for the women to see and escape.

According to Ms. Linner, “Rahab’s House Siem Reap aims to create an environment where victims can be saturated with the presence of Jesus that can bring healing and hope.”

Laura has a degree in social work from Bethel University in her home state, Minnesota. She spent the last year working in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia, teaching English and doing outreach at Rahab’s House Svay Pak.

“My heart truly connected with the children and young women coming out of this horrific situation when I held the hand of a traumatized girl and realized I could have been her,” she said. “We are not intrinsically different. Yes, we have had different experiences but we are both daughters of the King, created to know Him and know who we are in Him.”

She will be overseeing staff for counseling, education and outreach at Rahab’s House Siem Reap.